The Snow Festival
Yes I've been lazy and am still in the midst of the spell. This past weekend I actually left the house with an entourage of waegookins and travelled north to the little town of Taebaek to see an ice festival. From the beginning the trip sucked. We all met at a little intercity bus stand in Gongdan, a neighborhood in Gumi with only banks and factories, a little before 6a. We needed to get to N. Daegu by 7 to catch the first bus for another 3 1/2 hour ride north through the coastal mountains. It was cold and the place was deserted. We waited; the man who worked there showed up and said ah-i-go--the equivilent to 'oh, brother'--at the sight of us. This completely contradicted all hope we got from the solitary Korean man waiting with us. He was supremely early too. We waited an hour, in the cold, and missed the first bus in Daegu. It gave us time for breakfast at least. On the bus sleeping. Off the bus at a rest stop and an unfortunate episode that left me weaker for most of the day. Sleeping, or trying to. The bus winding through the switchbacks, driver accelerating through each turn. Koreans are reading newspapers. The foreigners are sick. First laughing about it, them all are quiet as everyone tries not to vomit. We get off the bus; I sit down by a pile of trash, the first semi-clean place I found, and the Traci tries to figure out another way home. None of us wanted to take the bus again through those turns.
A bus brought us to the festival, past our hotel. We got a taxi back and had to argue our way in because the Irish girls didn't come. The lady was not happy about the decrease from two rooms to one and charged us more for the room we did have.
Walking back, the wind bit us and lashed muddy dirty snow in our faces. Walking backwards proved easier. Lexis gave us and went back with Tibha after 100m to call a cab. We put our thumbs out for anything that passed and a tour groups shuttle bus stopped and picked us up. They asked us where we were from then said to each other " two good countries; ours is a good country too." They refused payment when they dropped us off--in the midst of a shitstorm two strangers brighten things with a trivial kindness.
Seperated from two of our group we had little to do but wait. So we grabbed some beers and huddled in the lee of a small cabin and watched what really appeared to be excrement flying down from the pass above us. They never showed and we went in. The sculptures looked ok in the half light, the flying feces obscuring the melting and blemishes. The highlight was sitting on ice blocks at ice tables in the igloo drinking beers.
The next day in the brilliant sunshine, the sculptures lacked appeal.
The trip back was long, though the tedium was ammeliorated by a cute kid with a plastic sword. He kept stabbing at us, until Traci stole the sword and stabbed him and the other random kids around us. We got the cute one, who sorta became Collins son for a spell, to attack Zach at the other end of the train, though at first he made a mistake and attacked sleeping Tibha.
And the weekend was over. Back to work.
A bus brought us to the festival, past our hotel. We got a taxi back and had to argue our way in because the Irish girls didn't come. The lady was not happy about the decrease from two rooms to one and charged us more for the room we did have.
Walking back, the wind bit us and lashed muddy dirty snow in our faces. Walking backwards proved easier. Lexis gave us and went back with Tibha after 100m to call a cab. We put our thumbs out for anything that passed and a tour groups shuttle bus stopped and picked us up. They asked us where we were from then said to each other " two good countries; ours is a good country too." They refused payment when they dropped us off--in the midst of a shitstorm two strangers brighten things with a trivial kindness.
Seperated from two of our group we had little to do but wait. So we grabbed some beers and huddled in the lee of a small cabin and watched what really appeared to be excrement flying down from the pass above us. They never showed and we went in. The sculptures looked ok in the half light, the flying feces obscuring the melting and blemishes. The highlight was sitting on ice blocks at ice tables in the igloo drinking beers.
The next day in the brilliant sunshine, the sculptures lacked appeal.
The trip back was long, though the tedium was ammeliorated by a cute kid with a plastic sword. He kept stabbing at us, until Traci stole the sword and stabbed him and the other random kids around us. We got the cute one, who sorta became Collins son for a spell, to attack Zach at the other end of the train, though at first he made a mistake and attacked sleeping Tibha.
And the weekend was over. Back to work.
posted by The Principal at 9:46 AM
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